CHAPTER THIRTY-7
August 16th
"Today is the first day of the rest of your life."
Dear Diary,
I used to think that saying was a stupid cliché, but I believe it with all my heart now. My life has been full of second chances—the tumor that turned out to be benign, the car crash that didn't kill me . . .even Barry. Fifteen years ago, I dismissed him as a one-night stand, somebody I'd never see again. But yet, I never stopped thinking about him. Sex in the freezing cold in the back of a pickup truck . . . Most women would choose to forget that memory in exchange for a "first time" with rose petals and commitment. Instead, I carried it around—like a proud, dirty badge under my clothes. Maybe it was because that's all I ever had, but seeing how things have turned out, I think it was more than that. Of course, I'm not even sure that Fate would have approved enough of the way we met to orchestrate our bizarre reunion. After all, one brief night of automotive passion between a minor and a man nearly thirty is hardly the basis for a fairy tale. But I certainly have some force to thank. Being with Barry makes me happier than I've ever been before, and the second chance has been long worth the wait.
It's now been five weeks since Mrs. Bartle passed away. I keep her blanket draped over the foot of my bed during the day, and at night I fall asleep holding it. "Through Princes and War and Sundae Night Thursdays . . ."—the words sometimes enter my dreams. But they are with me most especially when I am awake, reminding me of how well she knew me and of how far I've come. I did have my share of princes—my father, who was going to whisk me away to a happier place on a tumor blimp; TJ, who was going to make me a sexy siren that men just couldn't resist; and now, the one she sent to me bearing glass slippers, her great-nephew Barry, the one least likely and the one that was meant to be. The peace he has brought me has made me realize how senseless the wars were. My biggest war was always with myself, namely my weight. But when I see myself through Barry's eyes—those deep brown, loving eyes that see me as beautiful—I know that hating my body is a silly waste of time and that it would hurt him to hear me bashing it, just as it would hurt me to know that he hated any part of himself. [PS I've lost eight more pounds, which brings me to 148 (which is a total of thirty pounds, and only eighteen pounds away from that goal weight I used to mention—not to be confused with my being just one jean size away from the tens I promised myself I'd buy with my refund on that ring I returned to Easy Shop . . . but who's even counting anymore?)]. And I'm proud to say that I've heeded Mrs. Bartie's good advice and have yet to spend a single Thursday night Sundaeless since the tradition began. Perhaps that's the secret of my success.
I'm even out of the warring zone with my mother, who I must say earned major brownie points when Barry told me he saw her snagging this journal away from the Cedar Groves medical staff. A while after the police retrieved my personal belongings from the glove compartment, some "well-intended" professionals "stumbled" upon them at the nurses' station. My mother had just emerged from the ladies' room when she found the doctors paging through this, "unsure" of what it was and of what further clues it might give them as to the state of my psyche. Apparently, she totally let 'em have it! Barry had just gotten there and didn't even know that the woman making a fuss was my mother. It's comforting to know that she stood up for my right to privacy, not that I can guarantee that she didn't read it afterward, but she hasn't been looking at me strangely, so I'm pretty confident that she didn't. We've actually been spending a lot of time together lately. She even joined me for a class at Mo's Gym, but I think I was right about that—line dancing to the Bee Gees just isn't her speed. But she's being supportive of my decision not to reenter hyperactive-waifs-in-spandex land, and I'm being supportive of her decision not to force herself into doing anything that makes her feel like a bumbling fool that can't keep up. Actually, my mother and I are just very supportive of one another in general now. We're working toward a "symbiotic" relationship, one in which our individual differences are mutually beneficial to both parties—and we're doing it in therapy once a week through a psychologist the hospital recommended, one that I also see once a week on my own. And we always go out for lunch afterward to reward our successful sessions. Overall, I'd say I'm learning to let her be a mother, no longer resisting "for the sake of mere resistance," as Dr. Dewison so aptly put it, and I'm even making a new friend in the process. She can still bug the hell out of me with just one look, but it's happening less and less, and I guess that if it didn't happen at all, she wouldn't be Mom.
Of course, no one will ever be able to replace Mrs. Bartle. I miss her every day. Sometimes I burst into tears for no reason, like when I'm watching a stupid talk show or folding the laundry. But then I remember that there is a reason—that Mrs. Bartle is gone—and I cry even harder. I know that what gets me through it is Barry and the safe and heart-happy feeling I get whenever he's around, which is most of the time. And my mother helps, too. She's been very "supportive" since the beginning . . . The beginning—it's strange how I've reversed my thinking. Everything always used to seem like a whirlwind, spiraling—with me in it—towards some kind of very dark place, some dreaded end. And now it's just the opposite. It's as if Mrs. Bartle gave me a brand-new world when she left, and brand-new eyes to see it with. Or maybe it's me. I haven't told anyone this—not even Barry, who loves me no matter what, or Dr. Dewison, who gets paid to—but I don't truly believe that Mrs. Bartle is gone. I know she still watches out for me, sitting up there with Henry and my father on some white, fluffy cloud, waiting for me to get married and have babies and live a wonderful life.
As for Barry and I, it's funny. We haven't even had sex yet (at least not in this millennium). We're taking the physical stuff slowly, which is nice for two reasons. One, because we're really falling in love, which will make it all the more special when we do take that step. And two, I'll have gotten so much thinner by the time he actually does see me naked than I was when we first started dating. But then again, "dating" isn't really the right term for two people that have already discussed marriage. But since we are taking it slow, I guess dating is what we'll call it for now.
And since this diary is just about filled, I'll have to start a new one when Barry and I begin our new chapter. But for now, I'm happy to leave off in the chapter that we're on—because it gives this book that I started after my first second chance a pretty happy ending. It might not be a fairy tale's "And they lived happily ever after," but it's one of reality's nearest equivalents and the absolute closest I've ever gotten. I guess the best part of all is that, unlike Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and anyone else that has ever lived "happily ever after," none of my story is make-believe . . . and it's incredibly far from over!
Diana